Featuring Reviews of Triangle Area Restaurants, and Food and Drink Recommendations!

Outback in Cary

I’ve been to Outbacks in Wisconsin, Illinois, California, and most recently to this one in Cary and the one in Durham, and they’ve all had very consistently good service and food. Even though the restaurant doesn’t have the best food, it’s one of those chains that I can reliably count on to get a decent meal.

Free Bread!

This location is a bit hard to spot from Kildaire Farm Rd. It’s behind a McDonald’s and not really visible from the street, but if you go down High Meadow Drive you’ll see it on the left. The parking lot usually fills up fast so you’ll probably have to park in one of the less crowded areas of the strip mall.

Many Outbacks aren’t open for lunch. The location in Cary does have lunch on Sundays, but I would advise checking Outback’s website for a particular location when in doubt. Dinner time can often be extremely crowded, with waits of 45 minutes or more.

Caesar Salad

Outback doesn’t take reservations, but you can call ahead to get your name on a list. We often get to Outback before 5pm just to avoid the waits. We got there at about 5:15pm on Saturday and didn’t have to wait, but by the time we left there was about 25 people gathered along the outside of the building waiting for a table.

We didn’t order an appetizer on this visit, but if we do, we usually get the Alice Springs Chicken Quesadilla. They’re really good, so good that I make them at home quite a bit. They’re too filling for an appetizer though, I think it could easily be someone’s entire meal. Outback also brings out small loaves of dark colored bread that is always soft, warm and sweet. If you get take-out make sure to ask for a loaf or two with your meal. I’ve gotten the Bloomin’ Onion before but it’s way too much for just 2 people, and I’ve found their Aussie Fries to be disgustingly gluttonous, again too big for 2 people.

Alice Springs Chicken

For the entrees, I got the 8 oz. prime rib (medium rare) with fries and a Caesar salad, and my husband got the Alice Springs Chicken with fries. He’s pretty predicable and gets that every time, and it’s always been good. I like the prime rib well enough, but I think they serve it at too cool of a temperature. If they heat the plate, and serve the steak at at least 130 degrees, and the au jus at about 150 degrees, I think the meal would turn out a lot better. It just gets cold before you’re halfway done eating… I’ve also gotten the Teriyaki Marinated Sirloin in the past, which is pretty good. Their non-steak options like the ribs or lamb never seem to be as good.

Prime Rib

Outback used to have a French Onion Soup as one of their side options, but they removed it from their menu about a year back. I think that’s one of the reason’s we don’t stop by Outback much anymore, I think that French Onion Soup was my favorite part.

My son, picky eater as he is, won’t eat any of the food here besides bread, so usually we feed him a meal before arriving. He was willing to try the Spotted Dog Sundae, which was nicely priced at only $1.95 for a big mound of vanilla ice cream with hot fudge and Oreo bits. He ate nearly the whole thing.

Spotted Dog Sundae

The nice thing about this Cary location is if you’ve gotten there late and have a long wait for your table, there’s an awesome science store and a specialty wine store in the same strip mall. It makes it a lot easier to pass the time, and sometimes we come to this location specifically because we do intend to go shopping before or after.